In television, the seven deadly sins are popular character tropes. Some shows think they’re being clever but are painfully overt (using a prostitute to represent lust, for instance), while others are more subtle. In Esquire Network's new show Spotless, they're very open about which sins their characters represent. As we anticipate the premiere, we’re here to bring you compelling examples of the deadly sins in other television programs. In this installment we’re tackling pride, often considered the basis for all other sins. Based on these clips, that description seems spot-on.

Game Of Thrones - "Baelor"

HBO

Pride is a recurring theme on GoT, and it’s perhaps the basis for the other sins (mostly greed and lust) we see displayed by the characters. Ned Stark may have been loyal to Robert Baratheon, but it was his pride that would not let him accept Joffrey’s ascension. For that, he was beheaded, symbolically cutting off the head of the Stark family, which started a domino effect of each member of the family having every bit of pride squeezed out of them.

True Detective - "Haunted Houses"

HBO

Pride can be a good thing, but seeing characters be proud of their accomplishments doesn’t make for great TV. It’s when pride leads to stupid things that we really want to watch. In the first season of True Detective, Marty learns that his wife slept with Rust, purely out of spite. Too proud to accept that he kind of caused it, he instead attacks Rust in the parking lot. It doesn’t end well.

Breaking Bad - "Felina"

AMC

Symbolically, Breaking Bad is build on Walter’s sense of pride — he’d rather sell meth than admit he needs help. But as it turns out, it’s literally about pride, as well. In the end, he admits the whole thing was for him, that helping his family was just a way to rationalize it. It takes an awful lot of pride to twist bald selfishness into altruism.

Mad Men - "Commissions And Fees"

AMC

Mad Men is loaded with examples of men being too proud for their own good, but none are more tragic than Lane Pryce. After finally becoming a named partner at the firm, he’s one of the few who “really run things” at SCDP thanks to his control of their finances. He eventually gets in over his head, and his pride can’t bear the thought of owning up to his mistake, leading to his suicide.

Supernatural - "Devil May Care"

The CW

Megalomania isn’t possible without a nice, thick base coat of pride, and it’s hard to get more megalomaniacal than the demon Abaddon from Supernatural. Already more powerful than your average demon, it’s not until season nine that we learn her true intentions: Rule not just the underworld, but Earth, heaven and all the angels. Of course, as with most people who get too big for their britches, it doesn’t end well.

True Blood - "Keep This Party Going"

HBO

Shows about zombies and vampires tend to be allegories, and that’s as true for True Blood as it is any other show in the genre. What we see in the Fellowship of The Sun is a certain kind of pride: Moral superiority. Rather than accept that the world is changing, they murder mortals who fraternize with vampires out of a misplaced sense of moral obligation. Sound like anyone you know in real life?

Hannibal - "Entrée"

NBC

Though it’s not always true in real life, in Hollywood, serial killers are always a proud lot. So proud, in fact, that killing’s no fun for them unless others are aware of their genius. Like others on this list, Hannibal does what he does because he believes himself to be superior to his victims. When he doesn’t get enough attention, he throws the unsuspecting viewers a bone and reveals himself as the Chesapeake Ripper.

Pride (and a healthy dose of stupidity) pretty much defines every character on It’s Always Sunny, but Dennis is easily the most prideful, easily unsettled one of the bunch. When Dee suggest that he may have peaked in high school (something that usually amounts to little more than a joking prod at someone), he unleashes an epic (if not pathetic) rant.

Sherlock - "The Great Game"

BBC

Sherlock himself would be at home on this list, but he loses the spot to his arch enemy’s inability to accept that no one can outsmart Sherlock for long. For all his attempts to best Sherlock by controlling others, Moriarty's fragile pride really shows at the end of season one when he can’t help but reveal to Sherlock that he’d been hiding under his nose the whole time.

Spotless - "Cut Down"

Esquire Network

Despite the fact that Jean had no business getting into the criminal lifestyle, Nelson Clay decides to “reward” the man and pay him 20,000 pounds as a retainer for any future services. Clay and Jean maintain their integrity and keep things strictly professional and courteous despite all the death and destruction that had happened so far. Jean takes pride in making his livelihood in an honest way and not as a criminal.

Game Of Thrones - "Dark Wings, Dark Worlds"

HBO

Theon is basically a caricature of pride in the TV version of GoT. Full of bravado but generally disliked by anyone not his family, Theon's pseudo-adoptive status with the Starks leads him to overcompensate in a major way. That’s why, when he’s captured and tortured by Ramsay Bolton, it’s the most gruesome example of a fall following pride.

House Of Cards - "Chapter 26"

Netflix

They say you have to be borderline psychopathic to be the CEO of a major company, so imagine what it takes to run a nation. Every politician is pride-driven, egged on by their sense that they deserve it, which is reinforced every time they achieve more power. When Frank is hastily sworn in as President, we see the culmination of that work — but is he too proud to admit he didn’t really earn it.

American Horror Story: Coven - "Fearful Pranks Ensue"

FX

If it wasn’t immediately clear that Delphine was a terrible person on American Horror Story: Coven, consider that she was determined to keep her slaves despite other plantation owners having eschewed the practice. After committing unspeakable acts of torture after her daughter had the temerity to sleep with a black man, Delphine attempts to tap into her slaves’ “voodoo magic” to become immortal. She got what she wished for when her slaves revolted and buried her alive for 150 or so years.

Game Of Thrones - "Mother's Mercy"

HBO

Stannis starts off well enough. He believes, maybe correctly, that he has a legitimate claim to the iron throne after Robert Baratheon’s death. His prideful zealotry starts to go off the rails, however, when he gets mixed up with Melisandre. Once he believes he’s ordained by the gods to rule Westeros, he sacrifices both his brother and daughter to keep his hopes alive. At the end of the fifth season, we see what’s maybe the last of Stannis, thoroughly defeated by his own sense of pride and entitlement.

Dexter - "Shrink Wrap"

Showtime

Dexter and Hannibal have a few things in common. They’re both serial killers, and they both believe themselves to be superior (morally and otherwise) to their victims. The difference is that Dexter has an “urge to kill,” which he rationalizes by killing only “bad” people. You’d need a pretty strong sense of pride and self-importance to grant yourself that kind of power, and that’s exemplified when Dexter confesses proudly, almost gleefully, that he kills people to his therapist (and then kills him, too).

Justified - "Debts And Accounts"

FX

Pride is sort of the basis for Justified, as it’s premised on Raylan being placed on U.S. Marshall duty in the rural Kentucky town he hoped he’d escaped for good. Raylan’s contrasted by Boyd, a former criminal turned still-kind-of-a-criminal who believes he’s been called to “clean up” Harlan county. Boyd’s pride in his vigilantism is a theme throughout the show, but this scene during the second season shows just how strongly he believes in himself.

Better Call Saul - "Alpine Shepherd Boy"

AMC

When we first met Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad, all we knew was that he was a shady (albeit crafty) ambulance-chaser attorney. Once he finally got his own show, which takes place before the events of Breaking Bad, we see how Jimmy McGill got to where he is: Luck, moxie and not much else. Every man has to take pride in some part of himself, even if he doesn’t have much. Having pride in your ability to tough it out is as good as anything if that’s all you’ve got.

True Detective - "Maybe Tomorrow"

HBO

Frank Semyon didn’t want much at the start of the second season of True Detective — just a multi-million dollar stake in a land deal that would allow him to leave his criminal past behind him for good. That doesn’t happen, of course, and in trying to track down his lost investment he finds himself in a weird grey area, no longer a respected business man, but not a feared mobster, either. He re-establishes himself by beating the bejeezus out of Danny Santos when he refuses to cooperate, but the damage has been done: The image of being a wealthy, legitimate business man he prided himself on is gone.

The Walking Dead - "Sick"

AMC

If you’re alive in a zombie apocalypse, you have plenty to be proud of already. Of course, that doesn’t stop plenty of characters from doing dumb things in the name of pride. During the third season, things are going fine at the prison until Thomas, the prisoners’ leader, hatches a plan to get Rick killed. Rick finds out and kills him, and not liking the idea of an outsider messing with one of his own, a prisoner named Andrew tries to retaliate. He’s outnumbered and soon surrounded by zombies, but rather than killing him when he had the chance, Rick assumes victory on behalf of the zombies. Spoiler alert, it didn’t work.

Mad Men - "The Mountain King"

AMC

Like most on Mad Men, Joan is a complicated character. She has a rough time both in and out of the office, yet she often proves herself to be capable and is one of the few characters who “runs” the agency. But at the same time, she can be kind of a jerk to the other women in the office. Peggy, with her desire to blaze trails and be more than just an admin, rubs Joan the wrong way. That’s why it’s such a hit to her pride at the end of season two when Peggy gets a job as a copywriter and her own office.

Sons Of Anarchy - "NS"

FX

ATF work is dangerous business, and successful agents have reason to be proud of their ability to toe the line between the criminal world and law enforcement. June Stahl’s brutal death at the end of the third season of Sons of Anarchy should be a reminder to never rest on your laurels or underestimate your marks, however. After a series of underhanded killings and framings, she’s thinking she has everything under control until Opie puts a bullet in her head, the same way his wife Donna died.

Game Of Thrones - "A Golden Crown"

HBO

For as open as the characters on Game of Thrones are with their sexuality, you wouldn’t think being gay would be such a taboo, and yet it is. The insecurity about his sexuality undermines Renly’s campaign for the Iron Throne, for which he, like Stannis, believes he’s a legitimate heir to following Robert’s death. Though he’s a confident and beloved leader in public, the revelation of his doubts and insecurities is an example of how pride can sometimes act as distraction from our true selves.

The Sopranos - "All Due Respect"

HBO

Being a mob kingpin requires a tremendous amount of pride and ego, which Tony Soprano certainly has in spades. Unfortunately, running a successful criminal organization sometimes requires compromise, which can be hard for a man who’s too proud to lose. At the end of season five, when Tony must make a difficult decision that has to please everyone (but himself), Silvio confronts him about his prideful stubbornness.

Justified - "Bloody Harlan"

FX

It’s tempting to compare the relationship between Boyd and Raylan on Justified with that of Batman and the Joker, but that’s not exactly right — though their methods are different, Boyd and Raylan want essentially the same thing. What they have in common, however, is that both men believe themselves to be the only one capable of handling the other. When Boyd steps in to save Raylan at the end of the second season, it’s not out of kindness — it’s because he wants to be the one to put Raylan down when the time comes. Boyd could have potentially realized his goals sooner if he hadn’t been too proud to let others kill Raylan for him.

How I Met Your Mother - "The Final Page"

CBS

While a common theme of HIMYM is every character’s reluctance to accept that things change and some things just plain end, Barney Stinson is easily the most prideful of the bunch. So much so, in fact, that his pride in being a single bro causes him to miss out on a lot of life. That’s why it’s a refreshing change of pace when he casts that aside to admit that he needs Robin in his life (even if they don’t last).